


Got You Back

by honeynutchelios (sebhar)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Mildly Dubious Consent, suicidal talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 16:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebhar/pseuds/honeynutchelios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonathan is dead. Patrick discovers a way to get him back.</p><p>EDIT August 2015: "My" Kaner is and always has been a fictional character. That said, it feels weird writing about Patrick Kane now. Still, writing helps me work through my feelings about what's going on. I have a couple other stories with him in them on the burner. I'll post those once they're finished/edited. Then I'm probably done writing about even fictional versions of Patrick Kane.</p><p>That said, I understand works about Patrick Kane can be triggering. I myself am a rape survivor, and am a trained sexual assault victim advocate. If you ever need to talk, I'm on tumblr as sebhar and always willing to help you process how you're feeling and/or hook you up with further resources. Thank you for reading, and for all your kind words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got You Back

It’s been six weeks since Jonny died, and Patrick still wakes up numb. No matter how much he freaked out in his sleep, how bad the nightmares were, his waking hours only felt… empty. 

He’d exhausted everyone around him. His friends, his teammates, his coaches and the staff… shit, even his family… one by one, everyone he knew asked – always so gently, with so much care in their eyes and voices – if he wouldn’t be better off talking to “someone.” Pat came to hate that phrase. He’d tried talking to someone. Hell, he’d tried talking to everyone. They just couldn’t take him anymore, and he understood that. Frankly, he was amazed people stuck around as long as they had, but everybody has a breaking point where they just can’t take anymore and he’d run out of confidants.

Everyone he’d been close to is miles away now. It took a couple weeks, but it dawned on him it wasn’t everyone else who’d become distant. It was him. Pat just wasn’t… there anymore. He didn’t feel like talking, didn’t feel like being around people. He didn’t feel like drinking, partying, going out at all. And, worst of all, he didn’t feel like playing hockey. 

He’d hit the ice almost as soon as he got the news. Jonathan Toews. Dead in a car crash. Stupid, senseless. Pat laced up his skates, and that’s the last thing he remembered. One of the maintenance guys found him the next morning, curled on the ice, still sobbing. Dry sobs – at some point, he’d run out of tears. 

He realized he had to take a break from hockey. 

A week after Jon died, Pat hit the bars. He drank harder than he ever had in his life, and one goal – well, one new goal – to have some anonymous, meaningless sex. She bought them shots. Yes, he did want to go back to her place. He paid for the cab. A little while later he paid for the cab back to his own place, unsure why he’d thought he’d be able to get it up in the first place. 

It takes six weeks before he hears from, of all people, Jamie Benn. 

Pat shouldn’t be surprised. When Segs died of cancer last year, the whole league rallied around Jamie – but no one could really relate. 

“When I heard, I knew… I knew I had to reach out, Kaner. Uh, Pat,” Jamie finishes awkwardly. 

Pat sighs, strangely detached, absently wondering who gave Jamie his number. “I can’t talk about it,” he finally mumbles. 

“Hey, that’s fine. After Ty… I couldn’t either. I still can’t, really.” 

They sit in silence for a while, and, weirdly, it’s the best social interaction Pat’s had in over a month. “Jamie?” Pat eventually manages.

“Yeah man, still here.”

“How do I go on living? Who am I without him?”

Jamie is silent for a long, long time. Then Pat realizes the bigger man is crying, almost silently, nothing giving him away but the occasional hitching breath. It wasn’t fair to ask Jamie those questions, Pat knows, but he can’t stop asking them himself.

At long last – almost fifteen minutes, by the counter on Pat’s phone – Jamie speaks. His voice is soft, husky. “What if I said… this is going to sound horrible, but Ka- Patrick. Bear with me. What if I said you don’t have to?”

Pat’s mouth actually drops open. “Are you trying to tell me it’s okay to kill myself?”

He instantly regrets voicing it, but he’s Patrick Kane. Sometimes his mouth gets ahead of his brain. “What the fuck, bro? Why the fuck would you think that?”

“Uh, you just said I didn’t have to go on living.” 

“No, shithead, I said… okay, yeah, that kind of is what I said, but what I meant is you don’t have to go on living WITHOUT HIM.”

This time, the silence is Patrick’s. 

Seconds tick into minutes. Neither man making a sound. 

Pat can’t take it. He hangs up the phone. 

***

Jamie answers on the first ring. No hello. Just “Pat, thank God.”

“Thank God for what?” the harshness of his own voice makes Pat recoil a little bit. “Sorry. Jamie.” 

“I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Oh shit,” yeah, their last conversation, already a week ago, made that conclusion pretty reasonable, actually. “Shit, Jamie, I’m sorry, that’s…”

“No reason to be sorry, Ka- uh, Pat.” Jamie sounds relieved. 

“You can call me Kaner if it’s easier,” Pat intones. He tries to make his voice sound friendly. It comes out sounding forced and robotic. 

“Kaner.” The name hangs there, a stand-in for the things neither man can talk about. A surrogate for the names of their dead lovers. What a hell of a thing to have in common – the men we loved are dead. 

Well, and we play hockey.

“Jamie. Fuck, no, that’s weird, Benn. We’re doing this on a last-name basis or it’s too personal, I guess,” Pat tries to joke. Jamie, for his part, laughs hollowly. Patrick is grateful for it. 

“Listen, Kaner, we don’t have to talk if you don’t want. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. And it was so hard. It felt like nothing was real, you know? Like you’re on a space walk and… I just want you to know that I’m here, and…”

“Are you gonna launch into crazy talk again?” Pat regrets it, but just barely. Everything he feels lately is like that. Just barely. 

Finally, Jamie breaks the extremely awkward silence. “It’s not crazy, Patrick.” The big man takes a deep breath. “I can sign you up for something that helps. It helped me. There’s this… service. It’s in beta right now, but it helped me a lot after… after… shit. After Ty died.” 

Neither of them can say anything for several agonizing minutes after that. “What kind of service?” Pat finally asks. He’s breathless. Still mostly empty, but breathless. Something flickers inside him, some emotion without a name. 

“When I try to explain it, it does sound crazy. I tried it and… it just helped me so much, Pat. I know what you’re going through and I know how long I let myself suffer and I want you to have this. I have an invite.”

One breath. Two. A third… “An invite to this service?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And it helps?”

“…yeah.”

“And it’s not hookers, right?” 

Jamie’s laugh is genuine this time, if brief. “Fuck, Kaner, no. I am not sending you hookers.”

Pat’s smiling muscles are sore from disuse, but he cracks a small one anyway. Instantly he remembers how Jon used to kiss him when he did that – “your dumbass smile, Kaner, honestly” – and that’s the end of that. He clears his throat. “Sure, man, I mean, it can’t hurt, right?”

“No, man. If you’re where I was, there’s no way to get lower.” 

“Sounds about right.” Pat thinks for a second. “What does it do?”

“It will let you speak to him.” Then, in a rush, as if he can see Pat’s face somehow, Jamie barrels on. “I know he’s dead. But it wouldn’t work if he wasn’t. And don’t worry, it’s not some crazy spiritual thing.” 

“Shut up,” Pat thinks, then realize he’s said it aloud. “I mean… not shut up like stop talking.”

“Whatever, dude. Anyway, like I said, it’s still in beta but I’ve got an invite. You don’t have to do anything, I can just sign you up…”

The conversation ebbs back into silence, but gently this time. Eventually, Jamie asks, “So, what’s your email address?” and Pat feels stupid for just assuming Jamie knew it already. 

***

It takes a few days. Pat’s sitting in his bed, legs tucked underneath him, taking up as little space as possible. The bed feels so empty with Jon gone. There’s a bag with a burger and fries next to the bed, but this thing keeps happening where Pat realizes it’s been forever since he ate, so he buys food, but then can’t bring himself to eat it. He’s scrolling through his phone, looking at Instagram – people’s perfect, ideal, filtered lives – when he gets a notification. 

An email. 

From Jonny. 

From Jonathan Toews. 

Subject: Yes it’s me

Pat throws his phone across the room. 

***

Patrick wakes up curled into an uncomfortably tight ball. The fast food is cold, which sucks. His bed still doesn’t have Jonny in it, which sucks worse. The alarm clock says 3:31 a.m. and he knows exactly what he needs to do. 

Resolute, if sore from the ridiculous sleeping position and dehydrated from the crying, Patrick stalks across the room, picks up his phone, and dials.  
“I don’t fucking want it. I don’t care. It’s… obscene to use his name. His name! Fuck, Jamie. It hurts! You fucking know it hurts...”

Jamie cuts him off, his voice rumbling with sleep. “Which is why I signed you up.”

“What is it? Just, what the fuck is it?”

A sigh from the other end of the line. “You click the link. You talk to it.” Jamie’s voice is surprisingly gentle. 

“You talk to it?”

“Well, yeah, you type messages to it and it talks back to you, just like he would.”

“He’s fucking dead, Jamie. Jon is dead.”

“I know that. It’s software. You give it someone’s name, it goes back, and reads through all the things they ever said online. Facebook, tweets, interviews, anything public. I gave it Tazer’s name, and the system did the rest. It’s smart software, and…” 

“It’s sick,” Patrick mumbles, then clarifies, his voice more certain. “It’s fucking sick.”

“It’s so late, Kaner. Just say hello to it. I’m telling you, it helps. If you like it and you know his passwords, you can give it access to his private stuff. The more it has, the more it’s, well, him.” 

“It won’t be…” 

“No, it’s not. But it helps.” 

At a loss, Patrick just hangs up on him again. He’s shitty for doing that, but Jamie was shitty for suggesting this. 

But now that it’s suggested… it’s started. The ball is rolling. It’s done. 

He doesn’t know what the fuck to do. Because it is sick. But what if—

He calls Erica. Leaves a message. Stares at his phone. At that notification. That email. Jonathan Toews. Yes it’s me. At some point, he falls asleep. He doesn’t dream. 

***  
He wakes up to a missed call from Erica at dinnertime, but with his mind made up. 

Patrick: Is it really you?

Jonathan: Of course it’s me. 

Patrick: I only came here to say one thing. 

Jonathan: What one thing?

Patrick: I don’t know who I am without you. 

Jonathan: Wow. 

Jonathan: You’re Patrick fucking Kane, dipshit. 

Patrick just starts to cry. 

***

Erica calls while Pat is taking a leak. He decides to answer it anyway. 

“I forgot to call you back, I’m sorry.”

“Oh no worries, I just—wait. Patrick Kane. Are you taking a piss while you’re on the phone with me?”

“No! I’m running water in the sink so it SOUNDS like I’m peeing.” He smiles a little and it doesn’t hurt. It’s almost regular. 

“You better flush, asshole. It’s so gross when dudes pee but don’t think they have to flush.” He does and she makes that exasperated noise she does. “I knew it!”

“We both knew it. Why’d you call?”

“I was returning your call! And when you didn’t call me back…” suddenly everything is serious again. “Pat, are you okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine, I just… I just had kind of a bad night.”

“Do you want me to come over?” Erica is the best. Of course she’d offer. “I’m going to come visit.” Well, maybe too much of a good thing. For some reason, he just can’t. 

“No, it’s okay. I’m okay. Really.”

“Pat, you’re upset. I’m going to come see you.”

But he just really cannot right now. “No, no. Don’t, Erica, I’m okay. I promise you. I’m okay.” He’s not convincing himself, but maybe Erica will buy it. “I’ve got to go, I’m meeting Sharpy.”

That does it. “Are you sure?” his sister asks, and he knows he’s got her. 

“Yeah, I’ve really got to get going, I just woke up and I need to shower before I leave and…” 

“Well if you need anything…”

“Bye Er!” and he hangs up too quickly, then kicks himself for it because he probably lost ground. But she won’t call back. She’s always been pretty good about respecting him when he really needs his space. The Sharpy excuse was a bit of brilliance on his part, though. She’ll think he’s out with friends. She’ll think it’s a good thing. 

***

Patrick: I wish I could speak to you.

Jonathan: You’re literally doing that right now.

Patrick: I mean really speak. 

Jonathan: We can speak. 

Pat exhales sharply. 

Patrick: How?

The response is just a link. On the page, Pat enters his credit card information without hesitating for a second. For a small fee, he can hear Jon’s voice again. 

The service says it will analyze all audio recordings of Jon and plug them into an algorithm. As it processes, thumbnails flash on Pat’s screen – Jon dapper at press conferences, Jon sweaty in the locker room after a game, even that ridiculous Holiday Album video. Pat’s face contorts, finally landing in a smile. He can’t help himself. 

Jonathan: I’ll call you when I’m ready. 

***

It happens almost too fast. Pat breathes in, then out, then his phone starts to ring. Jon’s picture is on his screen, along with the same two buttons it always has – red for dismiss, green for answer. 

Pat hits the green one. 

“Hello?”

“So how do I sound?”

Pat gasps, but can’t speak. It’s Jon. Jonny. Jonathan Toews is speaking to him. 

“Hello?” Jon’s voice asks. 

“Hello!” Pat has to remind himself it’s just software. He can’t let that nameless feeling in his stomach get out of control. But, fuck, Jamie was right. It helps. Oh my god it helps. “You sound just like him.”

“Kinda creepy, isn’t it?” and there’s a little bit of a mechanical feeling, but if Pat doesn’t try to notice… “I say creepy, but I mean it’s batshit insane that I can even talk to you. Like, I don’t even have a mouth.”

“That’s… that’s just…” Pat’s crying and smiling now and words are hard.

“Just what?”

“That’s just what he’d say I guess.”

“That’s why I said it.” Machine Jon. Computer Jon. 

“I think I’m going crazy,” Pat confides in the software. 

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” and Pat can hear Jon’s grin and the waterworks ramp up a notch. “You’re not crying, are you?” and how does a computer manage to sound gentle?

“Sorry. You always said I looked weird when I cried.”

“You always look weird, but weirder when you cry.” Oh good, even computerized Jon is like that. So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?

“Fuck you, asshole!”

And then they’re both laughing. 

***

“So finally I had to get in because you dared me to, and I was right, there were fish everywhere and it was so gross. Fish are so slimy. But then my foot got caught in some kind of spring, like, where water came up from the ground and fed into the lake…”

“I know what a spring is. I’m Canadian.”

“Stop interrupting! So my foot goes down and I trip and all my weight is on it and there are all these sharp rocks, right? I take my foot out and blood is everywhere. You were convinced I’d lost a toe I’m pretty sure. You went all Chelios…”

“What’s wentalchelios?”

“Went all Chelios. It’s this thing we said, like, you know, freaking out. Throwing a fit.”

“Okay, so I went all Chelios.”

“Yeah, and you were like lightning, I’m pretty sure you carried me all ten feet to shore and made me elevate it while you tried to find the first aid kit. You were talking about tetanus and shit and reassuring me I’d still be able to skate and then this local guy came over, all, ‘Oh, my wife will fix you right up, come back to my house…’”

Deadpan, Jon intones, “Was that supposed to be a Canadian accent?”

“That was a Canadian accent.”

“It was French.”

“Canadian!” 

“French!” 

“Fuck you, it was a Canadian accent, we’re moving on.” 

***

“I used to hate walking around Chicago. No one looks at you.”

“You must be getting old.”

“Fuck off!”

Pat had paid enough to get the Sears Tower observation deck – which he still insisted on calling it – to himself for the afternoon. “I remember when you first brought me up here. Right after I met your mom, and man you know she’s the best but being around your family threw me a little and I needed to clear my head. I said I’d never been up here, so you brought me. You were good like that.”

There’s a pause, then, “You talk about me like I’m not here.”

Oof. Awkward. “Sorry.” 

“It’s okay, I guess. I mean, I’m not really. There, I mean. Am I.” It’s a statement, not a question. Eventually, Jon surprises Pat. “Show me what it looks like.”

“What?”

“The view. Show me that skyline.” 

“How?” Pat thinks it’s bizarre that it’s even possible.

“Use the camera on your phone. Duh.”

“Duh yourself.”

Pat fumbles with his phone. He’s had Jon on headset almost every minute of every day since he started using the service. “You started talking about people jumping off buildings to kill themselves. Doomed people jumping out of the World Trade Center. I think you just wanted me to cling to you.”

“No one’s ever jumped off the Willis Tower.” 

“Sears Tower. Did you just… look that up?”

“Yeah. Why, is that weird?”

“Kind of.”

“Sorry. I’ll only do it again if you ask.”

“No! No. No, it’s fine.”

Pat’s phone rings. His mom. “Shit.”

“Should I go?”

“No, n-no,” Pat stammers. Perish the thought. He needs Jon to stay with him. “I’ll call them back later.”

They sit in silence for a bit, alone together above their city. 

***

Slowly, Pat starts skating again. He’s talked with all the staff and they sound relieved. They think he’s recording himself skating so he can watch his own tape. They don’t know he’s sharing his ice time with Jonny. 

He’s alone on the ice, the camera on his helmet rigged to his phone so Jonny can watch live. Pat’s just shooting pucks at an empty net, doing some handling. He’s rusty, but he doesn’t feel it so much. 

It doesn’t take long for Pat to get overconfident. 

He doesn’t turn sharply enough and slams into the boards. He feels the phone break in his pocket. 

As one of the staff helps him off the ice, they assume he’s crying about Jonny. And he is, but not for the reason they think. 

***  
Pat’s nearly hysterical by the time the cab drops him off at the Apple Store. He throws money at the driver and sprints inside. Fuck. They’re about to close. He’s sweaty and sobbing and he should probably be offended that despite this, the employees still recognize him and wave him inside. 

***

“Come on, come on, come on, come the fuck ON,” Pat chants at his new phone as it charges. When it has enough juice, it rings immediately. 

Jonny. 

“I’m sorry!” and he’s sobbing into the phone. 

“What happened?”

“I hit the boards. On top of you. I crushed you. I’m sorry. It was just…”

“Hey, it’s alright. I’m fine. I’m not in the phone, you know. I’m in the cloud. You can’t break me.”

“I was so stupid. I was so excited to be back on the ice…”

“Yeah, I kept the video of you skating. Listen.” And Pat does. It’s oddly soothing. “No need to go all Chelios. I’m not going anywhere.” The Chelios phrase snaps Pat back into place. 

“You broke so easily.” 

“Yeah. I was going to talk to you about that, actually.”

“What do you mean?” What the fuck could he possibly mean?

“There’s another level available. You know, of this… of the service.” Oh, right. Sometimes Pat lets himself forget he’s not actually talking to Jonny. And does this count as an ad? 

“What is it?” Pat manages, finally. 

“It’s still kind of experimental and I admit, it’s not cheap.” 

“We make the same amount of money, dumbass. What is it?”

“Sit down. This might sound pretty creepy.”

***

Patrick paces. And paces. And paces. He checks his phone. And paces. It says the package is out for delivery and don’t they know he’s Patrick Fucking Kane?

He opens the door before the delivery men even make it up the steps. “Good morning!” Pat’s so nervous. Do the guys know what they’re delivering? Shit, he hopes not. The press… the team… ugh. He needs to chill out. 

“Morning. What’s this, a block of gold?” one of the delivery guys jokes. Phew. They don’t know. 

“I wish.” Patrick forces a smile. 

“Where’s it going?”

“This way.” Pat points them to his room which, yeah, a bit weird. One man starts wheeling the huge box in on a dolly, while the other has Pat sign for the package. “Make sure you lay it on its back!” he calls after the wheeler, who gives him a bizarre look in turn. Pat definitely needs to relax. He can’t help but fidget. After the delivery guys leave, and the van pulls away, he sprints back to his room. 

He cuts open the tape. Shit, it’s in a crate. He gets a hammer. Fuck this. He pries up some nails… and then there’s nothing left to do. No way to put it off any longer. He flips open the lid and lets out a weird little gasp-shriek. It looks like he’s ordered a dead body – slightly too realistic to be a mannequin. 

“Say something,” he asks, seemingly to thin air. 

“Show me,” Jon offers, on speaker from the bedside table. Pat gets his phone, then snaps Jon a picture. “Yeah well, I never won any beauty contests,” 

“It doesn’t look like you.” Pat’s disappointment must be pretty evident in his voice, but how a computer program recognizes that, he has no idea. 

“Not yet. It’s blank until you activate it.” Jonny keeps talking as Pat inspects the synthetic body parts, packed carefully in the crate. “You need to fill up the bathtub.” Pat removes and unwraps the pieces, slowly, carefully. He can’t believe they’re real. “Pat?”

But they are real. This is real. It’s happening. “Yeah.”

“Bathtub.”

“Right. Sorry.” 

***

When Pat’s put the body into the bath water, he notices something wet on his shirt. “Oh, ew, what the fuck.”

“What?” Jon asks.

“What the fuck is this? Wet shit on my shirt? Oh god, ew.”

“It’s nutrient gel. It’s so the synthetic muscle doesn’t dry out in transit.”

He can’t help it. Pat sniffs the shirt. “It smells like marshmallows.”

“Says here it’s non-toxic, so go ahead and eat it if you want.”

“Ew!” He licks it anyway, just in case. It does NOT taste as good as it smells. 

“Don’t forget the electrolytes.” 

“I’m a hockey player. I’d get my ass kicked if I forgot the electrolytes,” Pat tries to joke. It’s weak and he knows it. He picks a packet out of the crate. “All of it?”

“Yeah, the whole thing,” Jon assures him. Pat doesn’t want to fuck this up. It’s a little Frankensteiny and he feels like it could probably go very badly. 

“It’s like fish food.” In both texture and smell. Pat has no desire to taste it at all. 

“He likes the taste of it!” 

Jon’s attempt at a joke is pretty bad, too, and Pat shudders a little bit. 

“Better leave him alone,” Jon suggests, and Patrick is thoroughly creeped out. He can’t get out of the bathroom fast enough. 

***

After a few hours, Jon says, “I have to go soon.”

“Oh, fuck, Jon, don’t leave me here alone with it.”

Jon’s signal starts being weird and Pat does not appreciate that one bit. “You can hear it, right?” Jon asks. “It’s starting already. Whatever you do, don’t switch the bathroom light on…”

“Like hell. I’m not going in there.” 

“I mean it, Patrick,” and there was the Captain Serious voice. “Let it brew. I’ve got to go.” And just like that, Pat’s alone again. 

Well, almost. 

***

He can hear the bathtub water bubbling.

And did the wind just pick up?

Fuck.

***

Jon walks into the living room where Pat’s waiting. He’s dripping wet. 

“Could have left me some clothes at least,” is the first thing out of his mouth. 

Pat wants to kiss him but also run away screaming. 

“This is not a dignified entrance,” Jon continues. 

Pat just stares. 

“Dude. Stop being creepy.”

More staring. Pat’s eyes on every inch of what used to be just a bunch of blank flesh but now. Now. Somehow. It’s Jon. 

“Could you at least hand me a towel? I’m dripping.” 

Look anywhere but his dick, Pat. Aaaaaanywhere else. Oops. 

“Hello?”

***

They’re both sitting on the couch. Jon has an old bro tank on – guns out – and a pair of Blackhawks sweatpants. Pat has his knees drawn up to his chest. He can’t take his eyes off Jon. He also is way too freaked out to get too close. 

It’s awkward. 

“I won’t bite,” Jon assures him, but Pat stays in upright fetal mode.

“I’m alright here for now,” he almost-whispers. 

“Hungry?” Jon asks. 

“Do you eat?” Pat blurts. He’s afraid he made it weirder, but to his relief, Jon chuckles. 

“No. I mean, I don’t need to. I can chew and swallow if that’s less weird.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pat mumbles. Then, “I need a drink.” He makes a beeline for the liquor cabinet and pours himself one. 

Jon follows him into the kitchen. It seems to Pat that he walks as noisily as possible, as if to make sure Pat knows he’s not sneaking up on him. He tips back the alcohol and turns to… Jon. Holy shit. It’s Jon. “You look good.”

And that smile is Jon’s smile. “Well, I am pretty young.”

Pat almost smiles too, at that. “I mean, you look like Jon on a good day.”

“Online pictures tend to be flattering. I guess I wasn’t any different.”

Patrick knocks back another drink, then crosses the room and, hesitant but overwhelmingly curious, puts a hand to Jon’s face. “You’re so soft. You’re so smooth, how are you so smooth? You’ve got pores, you’ve got your lines…”

“Texture mapping. My skin is mostly 2-D. Here, try my fingertips.” 

And Pat does, but they freak him out a little. They look like they have fingerprints, but they’re completely smooth to the touch. “Does it bother you?” Jon asks. 

“No!” Patrick utters hastily, then, immediately, “Yes. I don’t know. I don’t know.” And he’s crying again, but just a little. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”

“Don’t cry,” Jon whispers, and Patrick has him by the hand, leading him to the bedroom. He sits Jon on the bed, then takes his shirt off. 

“You too?” he asks Jon, who complies, but looks… almost confused. Then they’re sitting on the bed, facing each other. Pat leans forward, crawls so he’s almost on top of Jon, takes Jon’s hand and puts it on his ass which, thanks to his recent return to skating and a not-horrible diet, is pretty firm. “Hello,” he says, softly. 

“Hi,” Jon says. 

“Your hand’s on my ass.” Jon removes it. Pat puts it back. “You’re doing wonders for my self-esteem. I’m Patrick Fucking Kane,” Pat pouts. 

“There’s no record of my sexual response,” Jon intones, and of course there isn’t. They always had to be so careful. Patrick can feel his heart starting to break all over again and he has to come up with something. This has to work. He can’t go through it all again.

“So we were together, huh?”

God damn it, Pat’s crying again for a thousand reasons and no reason at all. “Yeah. Yeah, Jon, we were together.”

“It seemed like it from all our time together – that cab in Russia? Come on – but I’m amazed we managed to keep any real record of it off social media.” 

And now Pat’s smiling through the tears because of course he is. And he can’t get his mind off Jon’s body and his dick says it’s time to get back to business, so… “You do have sexual responses though, right? I mean…” Pat trails off, eyes on Jon’s crotch. “That works, right?”

“Oh, that I can turn on and off pretty much whenever,” Jon acknowledges. “See?” and then Pat’s kissing this Jon.

***

“FUCK” Pat yells. 

“Should I stop?” Jon asks. 

“Fuck NO, it’s GOOD,” Pat keens. And it is. He’s always enjoyed sex with Jon because they were in love, but he didn’t know the physicality of it could be like this. “Where did you learn this stuff?”

“It’s an algorithm based off porn,” and just like that, he’s reminded again that this isn’t actually Jonny. But it still feels like Jon and looks like Jon and it’s amazing. 

This is Jon’s life now, Pat thinks to himself. 

“I love you,” Pat moans.

“I love you, too.”

That puts Pat over the edge. 

***

Patrick wakes up the next morning, smiling, satisfied. It’s the best he’s felt since Jon died – almost four months ago, now, he realizes. He feels Jonny beside him, turns to kiss him awake – then jumps. “Holy shit, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Jon says, but that’s not entirely true. He’s lying there, flat on his back, eyes slightly open, lips parted. He looks freaky. 

“The way your eyes were open freaked the shit out of me.” 

“Do you want me to close them?”

“Um, you mean when you’re sleeping? Yes, dude.”

Jon breathes a small sigh. “I don’t really need to sleep,” he says softly. 

“Well could you like, try next time?” Pat cuddles up next to Jon and they stay in bed for a while. 

***

Pat actually is reviewing tape when Jon comes into the living room behind him. 

“Can I get you anything?” Jon asks, and Pat jumps so hard he almost falls out off the couch. 

“No, thanks.” 

“Sandwich? Gatorade?”

“I said no!” and Pat didn’t mean to be a dick, but Jon looks hurt. “Babe, I… I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s so weird.” 

“Oh yeah, it’s definitely pretty strange.”

“I just need…” Come on, Kaner. Showtime. You can make words without sounding like a douche. “I just gotta get used to it. I’ll get there.” 

And the smile is back and Jon looks kind of sheepish and he’s so beautiful and…

Fuck. 

There’s definitely a car outside. Someone is definitely here. “Shit. Get in the bedroom. Now.”

“What?” 

“Now!”

Erica. 

Pat answers the door after waiting quite a while. 

“Hey!” Erica greets him with a smile and a hug. 

“Hey yourself!” oh man he sounds pathetic, and he didn’t realize they were hugging until after it was already happening. He needs to play it way cooler than this. Erica’s smart, she’ll realize something’s up. 

“Can I come in?” she asks finally. 

“Yeah. Yeah.” And they go inside. 

Over coffee, Erica drops the pleasantries. She doesn’t completely let him have it like he knows he deserves. She’s actually pretty gentle, but she’s not happy with him, and she has every right not to be. 

“You weren’t answering calls, texts, messages on any kind of social media, increasingly gross snaps of cousin diapers…”

“I’ve been really busy,” Pat lies, but he knows it’s a shallow defense. 

“Patrick…”

“No, it’s good! I’ve been back on the ice. Might even start practicing soon.” He’s a lying liar, but he’s wrapped the falsehood in truth. “It’s kept my mind off, you know. Everything.”

Erica sighs. She doesn’t trust him to take care of himself, never has. But it seems like she drops it. “Where’s the bathroom?” Pat just points. 

***

Erica stays most of the rest of the day. It’s good, talking to her. She’s always been so good for him. He’s lucky and he knows it, and he resolves – both aloud to her, and to himself – to stop being such a shithead. 

“We’ll meet up more. Erica, I promise. I’ll be better. I’ll keep in touch.”

“Don’t make me drive all the way back out here, asshole.” She hugs him again. “I think it’s great that you’re moving on,” she whispers, and oh shit, what?

“What?”

“You’re as subtle as a hurricane, Pat. There are two toothbrushes in the bathroom.” She’s too smart and also the worst. Pat’s at a loss, so he just looks at her. “Is he nice?” she asks. 

Pat feigns indignance. “What makes you think it’s a he?” And they laugh, and it’s all going to be okay. 

“You deserve whatever you want, you know,” Erica says, still smiling but with serious eyes. 

“Thanks,” he murmurs, and like that, she’s leaving.

***

“Hey, everything alright?” Jon asks. 

“It’s fine,” Pat says curtly after finishing his drink of water. 

“What did your friend say?” and Pat just has to give Jon a look over his water glass. 

“That was my sister. You know her. She said that I was… she’s happy I moved on.”

“Did you?”

Pat can’t help the scowl that darkens his face. 

“Isn’t that something I would say? It is, isn’t it?”

“It’s a shitty thing to say,” Pat growls, and moves to get around the other man and out of the room. Jon tries to stop him, and just like that, Pat’s water glass is shattered all over the floor. He bends down. So does Jon. “It’s okay. I can do it. I can get it, okay? Don’t!” Pat pushes Jon’s hand away and they both gasp as a shard of glass pierces Jon’s palm. 

But he doesn’t look hurt, just sheepish. There’s no blood as he pulls the glass from his skin. 

***

“If you’re going to pretend to be asleep you should breathe.”

“Breathing, eyes closed. Anything else?”

“Just… don’t be eerie.” Pat feels Jon turn toward him. “Thank you for not making any Lake Erie jokes right now,” he says without turning his head. 

“Is this okay?” Jon asks, and practices breathing. 

“I can tell you’re faking it.”

“Wanna fuck?”

“Can you just sleep… uh, stay on the couch tonight?”

“Okay.” Jon gets up to leave and it breaks something in Patrick. 

“No! Jon would fight. He’d argue with me about that. He wouldn’t just leave the room because I said so.”

“Okay,” and Jon turned right around and sat on the bed. 

“What the fuck, dude, no!” Pat’s head is in his hands and he can feel the tears burning and suddenly he’s angry and in denial. He knows who he should be angry at, and chooses to take it out on Jonny all the same. “Just get out, okay? Fuck off! Get out!”

Jon hovers, confused. “So you do want me to go?”

And then Pat’s shoving him out of the room, chanting, yelling, “Get out, get out, get out, get OUT!”

They’re by the front door when Pat stops. “You’re not enough of him, you hear me? You’re nothing. Nothing, compared to him!”

But Jon doesn’t shove back. He barely reacts at all. 

“Fight me!” Patrick shouts.

“I don’t do that,” Jon replies, confused, but maddeningly calm.

“Fucking fight me! Hit me!” He punctuates each repetition with a shove. “Hit me! Hit me, come on! Jon wouldn’t just stand there and take this!” 

“Did I ever hit you?”

“No, of course you didn’t, but you might have if I’d done this…” another shove – “or this!” and Pat just keeps shoving, harder and harder. “But you wouldn’t.”

“I could insult you,” Jon offers, and it just throws Patrick completely off balance. 

“What?”

“There’s tons of invective in the archive. I talked plenty of trash in my day. I could throw some of that at you.”

Where the fuck did the word “invective” come from, Pat wonders wildly. “Get out of this house!” he yells and Jon turns silently, then walks out the door. 

***

The next morning, Pat rubs the sleep from his eyes, then goes to the window. Jon’s standing in the front yard, still in that stupid tank and the sweatpants (which, admittedly, look really good on him). 

He can’t help it. Pat opens the window. “Dude. What are you doing out there?”

“I know this sounds like Robo-Jonny, but I can’t go more than 25 meters from my activation point.” 

And Pat knows he was a dick last night. He was such a dick. “This is America, I’m gonna need you to convert that to yards for me.”

They smile at each other nervously. “Get with the rest of the world, Uncle Sam,” Jon ribs him. 

“Where’s your activation point?”

“This may come as a shock, Kaner, but it’s where I was activated.”

“Fuck you, dick,” but this has Pat thinking. “So you can’t leave here ever?”

“I can if my administrator is with me.”

Pat wrinkles his nose. “Ugh, don’t call me your administrator, like, ever.”

“Why not?” Jon pouts. “I think it sounds sexy.” A laugh escapes Pat before he can stop it. “If you’re laughing, can I come back inside? I feel like a lawn gnome out here.” Pat shuts the window and gets in the shower. 

***

“We’re going out,” he says as he passes Jon, who’s still standing in the yard like a dumbass. Pat’s driving – Jon would have grumbled about the oversized vehicle, just another stabbing reminder that this isn’t really Jon.  
“Where are we going?” Jon asks once. 

Patrick is silent.

***

Patrick is silent in the car, in the airport, on the plane. He’s silent at O’Hare, in the cab, on the sidewalk. He’s silent as Jon follows him to his suite at the Trump. It’s not the Sears Tower, but it’s damn tall. It’ll do. 

Patrick is silent as he opens the window and carefully removes the barriers so there’s nothing but open air between him, Jon, and the streets of Chicago. 

“Noooooooo! Don’t do it!” Jon shouts into the void, jokingly. When Pat responds with nothing but silence, Jon looks at him. “Seriously, don’t do it.”

“I’m not going to do it,” Pat says flatly.

“Okay.” Jon seems uncertain. 

“He would have figured out what I was doing. I never would have done this, but if it had, he would have figured me out.”

“Sorry, that’s a really hard sentence to process,” and yeah, real Jonny would have just asked him what the fuck he was talking about.

“Jump.” If he could feel anything right now, Pat would be shocked at how dead the word sounded as it came out of his mouth. 

“I never expressed suicidal thoughts” is Jon’s only reply. 

“Yeah well, you aren’t you, are you?”

“Honestly. That’s another hard one.”

“You’re just a few ripples of you. There’s no history to you. You’re just a performance. You’re stuff he performed without thinking and it’s not enough.”

Jon looks a bit pathetic now. “Come on. I aim to please.”

“Aim to jump, asshole, just do it.”

“Okay. If you’re absolutely sure.” He’s not Jonny. He’s never been Jonny. Just this too-perfect Instagram facsimile. 

“See, Jon—Jon would have been scared. He never showed that side to other people, but he wouldn’t have just jumped off. He would have been crying, he would have been…”

But Jon cuts Pat off. “Oh.” He’s looking down, like he’s thinking, and… please, Pat thinks, please don’t… “Oh, God, no. Please. I don’t want to do it,” Jon intones, his voice is so flat, it’s not human, he’s not Jon, he’s not Jon… but his face is more complex, there’s more emotion in his voice, “Please don’t make me do it…”

“That’s not fair!” Patrick cries, but he won’t cry, he can’t cry, not over this thing, this weird robot algorithm computer machine not Jonny.

“No I’m… I’m so scared, babe, please, I don’t… don’t make me…” 

Jesus, no, this thing can’t be crying. It looks just like Jon crying and Patrick’s heart can’t take this, not anymore. 

“I don’t want to die. Oh, God, I don’t want to die!”

“It’s not fair!”

“I’m afraid, Pat! I don’t want to die!”

And Patrick wants him to stop, needs him to stop, but he can’t push Jon out the window because what happens when they find the body, what happens to his family, to the fans, to the team? But Pat doesn’t know how else to stop him – so he screams out the window, screams at the top of his lungs, “No!”

It’s the loudest sound Patrick Kane has ever made. They’re so far off the ground that the people on the sidewalk below don’t even look up.

**Author's Note:**

> When I saw Black Mirror season 2 episode 1, "Be Right Back," I could only see Pat and Jon. This is basically just a retelling of that episode.
> 
> I borrowed Jamie from the universe of "And in that moment, I swear we were infinite" by juniorvarsity -- many thanks! http://archiveofourown.org/works/1734938/chapters/3701921
> 
> Big ups to proshoetiers for beta-ing!
> 
> Mild dubcon because I'm not sure if Robo-Jonny can consent and honestly it bugs me.
> 
> I'm going to go write some fluff to atone.


End file.
